Hooves pounded the earth. Shouts echoed at their backs. Natasa whipped around. Six, seven…no, more like ten satyrs were bearing down on them.
“Skata.” Titus stepped in front of her and lifted the blade in his hand. “Go!”
She reached back for her dagger. “I can fight.”
“You’re pale as shit, and you can barely stand. Get the hell out of here before it’s too late!”
He was protecting her again. Even after everything she’d gotten him into. Something in her chest cinched down tight. Something she didn’t understand and wasn’t prepared for. Something that told her losing him was no longer an option.
“Go!”
Her temper flared. The heat inside her grew stronger. “Not without you.” She grasped the sleeve of his open coat and pulled hard. “I didn’t just betray the people who were protecting me so you could get yourself killed by some freakin’ satyrs.”
“Natasa—”
A crash echoed through the underbrush. Natasa twisted that direction. Instinct ruled before thought. She lifted her hand toward the satyr now only yards away. Heat and energy erupted in her palm. A fireball shot through the air, hit the beast in the chest, and ignited his coat in flames.
A scream tore through the trees. Hooves skidded against the earth. Shouts reverberated. Natasa’s eyes widened at what she’d just done.
“Holy Hades,” Titus gasped. “How did you do that?”
“I don’t…” She looked at her palm, then glanced back at the flaming beast rolling across the ground. Shock and sickness pooled in her stomach. “I don’t know.”
“Do it again.”
Openmouthed, she glanced past the satyr she’d hit, toward what Titus was staring at. More beasts. Dozens of them, racing their way. And through the mist and trees and red glow of flames, a man astride a giant black horse. Only he wasn’t just a man. Even from this distance, Natasa could feel the power and darkness radiating from his body.
“Do it again, right now,” Titus said more urgently. “That’s Zagreus.”
Fear shot through every inch of Natasa. Hades was hunting her—all the gods were. If he’d had any suspicion she’d been hiding out with the Amazons, of course he’d send his son, the greatest tracker on the planet, to chase her down. She’d been stupid to think she was safe here. Especially after those nymphs arrived.
She wasn’t going to be caught. Not by any god, and not by the Prince of Darkness. Her body took over. Thought fled. She turned and ran.
“Natasa!”
She didn’t stop. Didn’t think about her wound. She tore through the trees. Then skidded to a halt when she reached the edge of a cliff overlooking the churning Pacific.
Titus drew up short at her side, breath heavy. Waves crashed against rocks fifty feet below, and the sound of hooves closing in at their backs grew louder.
“Shit,” Titus muttered. “If you have any idea how you hurled that fireball, you better do it again. Fast.”
Natasa jerked around, realizing too late that instead of sprinting away, she’d run right into a trap. In her panic, she’d lead them out onto some kind of point. There were no more trees, only rocks beneath their feet and a drop-off to darkness and swirling danger in every direction.
She lifted her hand and tried to conjure the same energy she’d created before. Nothing happened.
“It’s not working.” Fear tightened her throat and caused her voice to rise. “It’s not working! What do we do?”
“Skata.” Titus grasped her arm tight at the biceps and jerked her back toward the ledge. “We jump.”
Chapter Nine
The frigid water tore the air from Titus’s lungs. His body rolled through churning waves and slammed into stone. Pain, like a thousand tiny knives, stabbed at every inch of his skin, but he braced his feet on the rocks, pushed away, and kicked hard, swimming toward what he hoped was the surface.
Somewhere on the way down, Natasa had let go of his hand. Panic spread beneath his ribs as he gasped in the cool night air. The waves lifted and lowered his body, crashing in churning white foam against the cliff. Darkness surrounded him while water ran in rivulets down his face, blurring his vision.
He treaded water, turned a circle, and searched for her in the darkness, not wanting to call out and alert the beasts above to where he—they—had landed. But he couldn’t find her. Panic turned to bone-melting fear. If she’d been swept out to sea or thrown against those rocks…
Water splashed, followed by her head breaking the surface not ten feet from him.
Thank you, Dimiourgos.
She was gasping for air when he reached her. He pulled her tight against him and whispered, “Don’t make any sound.”
Her hands landed against his bare chest. Her body pressed up tight to his. His open coat floated around them. “Where are they?”
He looked up toward the cliff. It was so dark—no moon—that he couldn’t see more than a few feet. The sound of pounding surf twenty yards away was his only source of information on the distant to the cliffs.
“I don’t know.” He wrapped his arms around her slim body, holding her close. He didn’t want to make a move for land until he knew they were safe. “If we’re lucky, they’ll either think we’re dead or that we’re too much trouble to come after.”
“If we’re lucky,” she whispered. “We haven’t been lucky yet.”
He couldn’t see much more than the whites of her eyes. He shivered again, but damn, her heat felt so good against him, he didn’t care.
He wasn’t sure about the luck part. Yeah, he was isolated from Argonauts, still wasn’t any closer to figuring out who she was, and because of her, he’d almost been sacrificed in a pretty twisted Amazon sex ceremony, but this wasn’t the worst date he’d ever had. In fact, he wasn’t all that upset over the events of the night. Because no matter what, they were still together.
You are so fucking screwed. One touch and you’re obsessed.
Obsessed was pretty accurate. He’d been obsessed with her since the moment he’d touched her back at the colony. Obviously, he hadn’t been using his legendary brain much. He wasn’t sure why Phin and Orpheus hadn’t followed him through the portal, but he knew the Argonauts had to be looking for him. And twisted as it was, even if he could alert Theron and the others as to his location, he wasn’t ready. Not yet. He wanted more time alone with the gorgeous creature clinging to him like he was her last lifeline.
“You’re shivering,” she said softly. “You have to get out of this water. We can’t wait much longer. Stay close to me while we try to get to shore. I’ll keep you warm.”
He hadn’t even noticed he was shivering until she pointed it out. That was how gone he was around her. But he knew she was right. Even with her abnormally strong heat plastered to his front, it wasn’t going to take long for his body temperature to drop and for hypothermia to set in. “Wh-why aren’t you shaking from the cold? And wh-why are you always so warm?”
Damn, he sounded really tough right now, didn’t he?
She tore her gaze away from his and grabbed on to his hand. “We’ll skirt the edge of the cliff. Try to see if there’s a ledge of some kind.”
“O-okay.” A rush of frigid water washed over his abdomen, sending another series of shivers all through his body. He was too cold to argue right now.
Water splashed in his face. He swam with one arm, trying to keep his head above the surface, trying to stay focused in the ice-cold liquid. Wave energy grabbed on and pulled them in. He hit the rocks with a grunt, turned, and reached for Natasa. Another wave dragged them under, and he kicked hard, pushing them back up to the surface.